WiFi in the Sky is Coming to Some United Flights

Jaunted.com reports that United will be the next airline to install Aircell’s Gogo service. As it turned out, Air Canada was next in line, but now, the Chicago Tribune reports, United will join the in-flight internet club.

In flight internet is cool, but can’t they figure out a way to pay for it other than charging $12.95? I mean how about if they ring the screen with ads…I’d prefer that to putting out almost as much as they clip us for extra bags.  When will airlines and especially, airports, realize that giving away WiFi would give them so much good will we travelers would almost forgive them for all of their other problems and hassles?

The carrier has now officially announced that 13 757s will get WiFi by “the second half of this year,” an installation schedule that is as glacial as we’ve come to expect. While we think of United as a Chicago airline, the Boeings getting Gogo will be those that fly New York to LA and New York to San Francisco, competing against also-Aircell’d carriers American and Virgin America.

While a United spokesman says the service may be expanded to other aircraft eventually, the carrier will wait to see how these first few flights fare in terms of internet use and ancillary revenue generation. The cost? The standard $12.95.